Liquid Biopsies Show Sensitivity in Monitoring Pancreatic Cancer

Liquid biopsies are sensitive enough to detect shifts in mutational load in response to treatment of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, according to an abstract presented by Chronix Biomedical (San Jose, Calif.) at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (San Francisco; Jan. 15-17). The pilot study extends the company's previous studies on head/neck cancers and colorectal carcinomas and demonstrates that droplet digital polymerase chain reaction assays are "sufficiently sensitive" to monitor tumor mutations in patients with advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas. The liquid biopsy assay quantified cell-free plasma DNA for KRAS and TP53 mutations in five patients. Within the small sample set, varying degrees of response (measured by clinical, biochemical, and radiological means) were seen ranging between complete response, stable disease, partial response, and progression. The divergent behavior of the two mutations (indicative of a partial response to therapy) illustrates, the authors say, the necessity of testing a "robust" set of markers in liquid biopsy. While it remains to be seen in larger studies with longer follow-up the clinical impact of liquid biopsy monitoring, industry watchers are confident that there will be marked progress towards commercialization and clinical adoption of liquid biopsy technology in 2015. For more information on the momentum towards clinical commercialization and adoption of liquid biopsies, please see DTET's special focus section on page 8.